Kerno and SAAL.ai unveil UAE-built Sovereign AI-in-a-Box

MoU signed at AI Everything 2026 empowers governments and enterprises in-country self-reliance across the AI stack while boosting the national industrial capability and Emirati talent.

Dubai, UAE –  Kerno, a UAE-based manufacturer of enterprise-grade IT infrastructure, and SAAL.ai, a UAE developer of Data Platform and Agentic AI solutions for government and enterprise, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding at AI Everything 2026. Under the agreement, the two companies will co-develop and deploy an integrated Sovereign AI-in-a-Box solution that is engineered, manufactured and supported entirely in the UAE.

The MoU was signed by Evgeny Ostrovskiy, Chief Revenue Officer and Co-Founder of Kerno, and Vikraman Poduval, Chief Executive Officer of Saal.ai. 

The solution gives organisations one accelerated path from data preparation to agentic AI. It is delivered at optimal cost, and customers retain complete ownership and control of their technology.

Sovereign Hardware. Sovereign AI. One UAE-Built Solution.

Sovereign AI-in-a-Box brings the full technology stack together in a single, deployment-ready architecture: enterprise compute, operating environment, containerizations and tailored AI models.

Kerno provides the foundation. Its enterprise-class infrastructure is engineered, manufactured, stress-tested and supported in the UAE. SAAL.ai delivers the intelligence layer through specialised AI solutions that drive operational efficiency, decision intelligence and digital transformation across critical public and private sectors.

Clients own and control their data, models and infrastructure. They can scale complex AI workloads without depending on foreign supply chains, offshore support or external platforms.

The partnership marks a shift from adopting technology to creating it. Local hardware production combined with local AI development keeps economic value in the country and strengthens the UAE's advanced manufacturing base. It also secures critical supply chains. The collaboration will build Emirati expertise across hardware engineering, manufacturing, AI development and deployment, helping develop the national talent that will design and run the country's next generation of digital infrastructure.

"As AI becomes central to national security and critical infrastructure, true sovereignty demands ownership of the entire stack, from silicon to software," said Evgeny Ostrovskiy, CRO and Co-Founder of Kerno. "By uniting UAE-manufactured hardware with UAE-developed AI, we are giving clients complete self-reliance. We are also investing in the local industry and national talent that make that self-reliance sustainable. This is technology built in the UAE and designed to scale globally."

"AI sovereignty is about ownership, control and the freedom to innovate," said Vikraman Poduval, CEO of SAAL.ai. "Together with Kerno, we are giving organisation a new model to adopt and scale AI without giving away the control of their technology. This collaboration shows that the UAE can build world-class technology from the ground up, develop the talent behind it, and take those capabilities to markets far beyond our borders."

The alliance directly supports the UAE's national agenda to lead the global digital economy through resilient, homegrown infrastructure.